Peter Kalan

Despite there being two Whitcoulls stores in the Dunedin city area, Whitcoulls Meridian, in the Meridian Mall, has a different clientele, and as a result, a different personality says store manager Daryl Woods.

Couldn’t get to conference? Here's a quick and easy summary.

Booksellers are suffering in the current recovery-from-recession phase, but speakers at Booksellers Conference last weekend projected a confident future. Yes, e-books will impact on trade – but ABA’s Len Vlahos showed how they can work for independent booksellers.

The Read will cover the key speakers in detail over following issues, but right now here’s the conference in a capsule:

REPORT FROM THE CHAIR TO BE PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF BOOKSELLERS NZ INC. 17 JULY 2011

Whitcoulls Riccarton store manager Nicky Page is an early bird, happy to do the interview with The Read at 8.00 am. It is her usual start time, to get ahead on the busy schedule of the store day.

Page and her team – eight full time and 12 part timers – face an active day, with customer service always the priority.

The 600 sq m Riccarton Mall store was the first Whitcoulls store to be refurbished as part of the new Whitcoulls store style and layout project, and opened on April 20 last year.